Aid And Influence

'This powerful critique of aid by a distinguished practitioner cannot be brushed aside. As Browne argues doubling aid without radical redesign is unlikely to deliver accelerated development. He offers an attractive recipe for reform.' Paul Collier Professor of Economics Oxford University 'Stephen Browne provides a radical and original take on a familiar subject with careful analysis and drawing on a wealth of personal experience ... Readable stuff destined to make those in the aid business think harder.' Sir Richard Jolly Institute of Development Studies Sussex Aid is always a means of influence.

This book turns the argument about aid effectiveness on its head. Since development assistance is inherently self-interested, a source of soft power, political manipulation and commercial opportunity, its real effectiveness could arguably be judged by the strength of donor influence and not by development impact. Its subjective nature means that its impact on development is often weak, mainly short-term and confined to limited and specific contexts. Aid as influence was prevalent during the Cold War era. The connection is equally strong in this century’s newly bipolar world in which the contest is between western donors led by the United States, and China which is spending hundreds of billions of dollars on infrastructure as a means of influence in the global South. Influence permeates both bilateral and multilateral aid and in parallel with official aid, the rise of global philanthropy has seen it taken up by some of today’s billionaires. The response by donors to the growing havoc caused by the three Cs – conflict, climate change and COVID-19 – confirms the main findings of the book, which concludes by outlining what aid without influence would look like. This book draws on the author's 40 years of experience of the aid industry and will be essential reading for development students, practitioners and policy makers alike.

Aid is always a means of influence: political, commercial, military and security-related. Some influence is benign, but much of it is coercive, even 'imperialistic'. Given the nature of aid, its effectiveness should be judged not only in developmental terms, but in terms of international relations. Even donors agree that, on both counts, the returns are meagre. This book, drawing on the author's 30 years of field experience, proposes two kinds of solution: donors should climb down from paternalistic central planning practices and support public goods that are neutral and beneficial? cancellation of debt, fair trade, responsible economic governance, vaccine production, peace-making and peace-keeping. For their part, developing countries should follow the example of the most successful among them: recognize the true costs of 'free' aid, exercise their prerogative to choose their development partners and start paying their own way.

" A Brookings Institution Press and World Peace Foundation publication Africa has long attracted China. We can date their first certain involvement from the fourteenth century, but East African city-states may have been trading with southern China even e...

'The World Bank needs India more than India needs it.' So goes an emerging consensus on both sides of the relationship between the Bank and its largest borrower. This book analyzes the politics of aid and influence. The Bank, struggling to remain relevant amid India’s recent rapid growth and expanding access to private capital, has been caught up in a complex federal politics of reform and development. India’s central government - far from being in retreat - has been the main driver of dramatic changes in the Bank’s assistance strategy, leading toward a focus at the sub-national state level.

Aid Power and Politics delves into the political roots of aid policy, demonstrating how and why governments across the world use aid for global influence, and exploring the role it plays in present-day global governance and international relations. In reconsidering aid as part of international relations, the book argues that the interplay between domestic and international development policy works in both directions, with individual countries having the capacity to shape global issues, whilst at the same time, global agreements and trends, in turn, shape the political behaviour of individual countries. Starting with the background of aid policy and international relations, the book goes on to explore the behaviour of both traditional and emerging donors (the US, the UK, the Nordic countries, Japan, Spain, Hungary, Brazil, and the European Union), and then finally looks at some big international agendas which have influenced donors, from the liberal consensus on democracy and good governance, to gender equality and global health. Aid Power and Politics will be an important read for international development students, researchers, practitioners and policy makers, and for anyone who has ever wondered why it is that countries spend so much money on the well-being of non-citizens outside their borders.